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*Email privacy and security survey*

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app103:
After a number of recent discussions about email privacy and security, I decided to ask this question here and elsewhere, as I am curious as to the responses among DC members and the general public.

Edvard:
Yes, I know what it is, and I also know the Gnu version, GPG, and about the OpenPGP standard.
Do I use it for email?  No.  Why, if I was whining so loudly about my beloved Lavabit shutting down?
Because 1- I just don't go emailing around sensitive information that would require it.  I'm not that important and neither are my email messages to friends and family.  My primary concern was to prevent "casual hacking" which might reveal passwords or other information I had stored in email (not smart, I know, and I started using POP3 instead of IMAP after someone apparently brute-forced my password to start sending out spam.  *sigh* Different story.)
2- I would have to teach my brothers, mother, grandmother, cousins and aunts/uncles and friends all about how to use it and why they can't read emails from me unless they did.  No thanks.

In my post about Lavabit shutting down, I described my very simple reason for using an email service that was encrypted, and it was about simple prevention of "casual hacking" which might reveal passwords or other information I had stored in email (not smart, I know, and I started using POP3 instead of IMAP and erasing messages from the server after someone apparently brute-forced my password to start sending out spam.  *sigh* Different story.)

Anyways, I do use GPG to encrypt my password vault, does that count?

40hz:
Like Edvard, I'm up on it, have GPG installed, but only rarely use it for much the same reasons he gave.
 8)

rgdot:
Same as above.
I use encryption locally (via TrueCrypt) more than any other form.

Jibz:
I know what it is, but I am not using it. The problem I see with GPG/PGP for e-mail is that, unless you are mailing somebody involved in linux development, chances are they don't have anything installed that can check/decrypt it. This sums it up nicely:

http://xkcd.com/1181/

A polished solution for this should have been part of thunderbird for a decade instead of relying on clunky plugins or obscure tools if it should have had any chance.

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